Larynx Dissonance

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For most adults, it isn't easy to change the apparent gender of their voices. It can be done — some are practiced enough to pull it off, and some can just pull it off by natural talent — but otherwise, the voice will just sound goofy. A man imitating a woman will speak in a ridiculous falsetto, and a woman imitating a man will put on the deepest baritone she can muster. If the goofy voice is part of a joke in a comedy, it can still work. When done deliberately to make a manly-sounding girl or vice-versa, it's this trope.

Examples:

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Imitating a Female Voice

Advertising

This commercial features a young male moving into a new town, where every girl he meets sounds like a man. The only girl who doesn't sound like that is a very homely girl. It turns out that the commercial is for Ajinomoto Stadium — the girls sound like that because they've been constantly screaming at the games.

Anime and Manga

The Lucky Star dub has Derek Stephen Prince play a number of female extras.

The original Japanese version subverts this, by having a female voice actor (Kujira) voicing female characters... with a male-sounding voice. (She also voices Orochimaru in Naruto, for those interested.)

And to complete the triangle, Derek Stephen Prince voiced Ma Toad in Naruto.

In the Golden Boy dub, one female minor character (who is seen for about 15 seconds in one episode), who is rather fat and unattractive, is voiced, rather badly and for laughs, by a man.

That man, by the way, is none other than Spike Spencer.

Shangri-La has two female-looking characters obviously voiced by males.

Chimpette from the Zanpakuto arc of Bleach is voiced by a woman... who usually voices male characters, and uses a male voice for the role. Probably because the character was originally a male baboon.

The English dub voice of Grell Sutcliffe in Black Butler sounds like she's trying to sound more feminine, which is quite appropriate seeing as Grell is a trans woman. Whether this is on purpose or by accident...

Many people actually preferred Grell's voice in the English dub compared to Grell's seiyuu and found it to be one of the better decisions in the anime. Which is ironic, because it's the VA's first big role.

The Swedish dub for Galaxy Express 999 had over half the female cast voiced by a man. And... not very discreetly either. Imagine a female android entering a train cabin, she is completely naked, and looks like she is made of crystal, with long flowing crystal like hair. Then she speaks and you hear the voice of an old man... it. is. HORRIBLE...

In the Japanese dub of Papuwa, the character Harada Umako is done by Kouji Ishii to play up the fact that she's the manliest character in the show despite being the sole female. Subverted in the English, however, by Joanne Bonasso speaking broken English in a faux Russian accent.

James in Pokémon whenever he dresses like a woman. He can pull off a rather decent-sounding female voice in the Japanese version, but in the dub (at least when voiced by Eric Stuart), he speaks in a cheesy Miss Piggy-esque falsetto voice that can actually be quite funny (especially in "Battle Aboard the St. Anne")

"Like wow, don't I make, like, the COOLEST girl?"

In the first sequel series of Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, the villain Gel Sadra is a woman, but is voiced by Masaru Ikeda, who gave her a voice more like that of a flamboyant man. This was to drive home how X's alterations made her inhumanly creepy, although this confused producers of the Eagle Riders dub, who initially translated her as a man until they had to explain away later episodes.

Persona 4: The Animation has Yu crossdressing during a school pageant, and getting into character very easily. The Japanese version just has Daisuke Namikawa using feminine speech patterns and a slightly softer voice, but the English dub has Johnny Yong Bosch pull off a rather convincing feminine voice.

Audio Play

The Firesign Theatre, being all men, do both male and female characters on their albums. The eeriest is definitely Phil Austin.

Film - Animated

Edna Mode of The Incredibles. She's played by the director himself because he couldn't find anyone else who could pull off the Japanese/German accent he wanted.

Supposedly, he did talk to Lily Tomlin, who had the voice he wanted, but she ended up saying something along the lines of "Why do you need me when you can do the voice fine?"

Larry King as Doris the Ugly Stepsister in Shrek 2 doesn't even bother with a falsetto.

Neither does Regis Philbin in Shrek the Third, as the other stepsister. Given that the Ugly Stepsisters are traditionally played by men in drag (traditionally called "dames") in the pantomime of Cinderella, that was probably deliberate.

In the British release of Shrek 2, Larry King was replaced by a talk show host who is more well known in the UK, Jonathan Ross. While still hardly feminine, his somewhat more high pitched, lispy-sounding voice could be considered more convincing.

Roz, the dispatcher in Monsters, Inc. is voiced by Pixar story man Bob Peterson.

In Carefree (1938), Connors pretends to be "Miss Satsuma Naguchi," a reporter for the Honolulu Daily Bugle, over the telephone. His voice is funny, but not remotely convincing; maybe he was hoping it would be chalked up to a bad long distance line. In any case, Stephen seems to buy it until he realizes that the caller is in a phone booth just a few yards away from him.

Some Like It Hot's very premise is about two male muscicians dressing up as women to join an all-girl band to hide from the mob. Jack Lemmon had a fairly high voice already, and was able to do a decent tongue-in-cheek female voice while not having to adjust his natural voice very much. Tony Curtis on the other hand had to rely on a professional voice actor (Paul Frees) to dub his female voice.

White Chicks. It does not work at all, because the film expects us to buy that nobody sees through their disguises. Their Miss Piggy voices combined with the "No plastic surgeon is that bad" look to completely ruin the suspension of disbelief.

It does help that the people the Wayans are supposed to be interacting with seem mildly retarded. "You can get knee implants?!"

Edna Turnblad in Hairsprayis this trope. She's a female character who was played by drag queen Divine in the original movie. Harvey Fierstein originated the role on Broadway.

John Travolta in the 2007 movie plays it more realistically, with a distinctly softer lilt than Fierstein's. Other stage versions have Ednas that barely try to sound feminine at all.

Also a case of Reality Is Unrealistic; several critics asked why Travolta was doing that weird voice, when he's actually playing Edna with a passable Baltimore accent.

Many fans of the original stage show despised Travolta's interpretation specifically because he was too believable a woman. Edna was intended to be played like a drag queen, and Travolta said there was "nothing gay about Hairspray" and somehow managed to de-gay the word "fabulous."

In Orgazmo, one of the women the titular character has to do a porno with is nicknamed "T-Rex" because she's so rotund. She probably has the deepest voice of any character in the film. Anyone who's since seen South Park will recognize that Trey Parker is dubbing her. Apparently the overweight middle-aged actress who was such a good sport to appear in the film didn't have a scary enough voice.

Averted: In To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, Patrick Swayze's drag voice is the second most convincing, aiming for soft and breathy rather than falsetto. The most convincing of all the drag queens, disturbingly, is John Leguizamo as Chi Chi Rodrigues, who only has to go up maybe half an octave.

That's because he has done drag as part of his comedy routine in the past, and already had a little experience in that area as opposed to macho men Swayze and Wesley Snipes.

Liev Schreiber has done two drag roles, and he doesn't even bother to disguise his (rather deep and masculine) voice. One was Chris from Mixed Nuts, who complains "My voice doesn't suit me." The other is Vilma, who Schreiber described as a "gay man who wears women's clothing." He does, however, make his voice sound kind of gentler than normal.

In 7 Zwerge, the camera zooms in on Snow White singing beautifully while behind her. The camera then moves around her, showing her from the front and revealing that she isn't actually singing. The camera then moves to the window next to it, revealing that one of the dwarfs had been singing the whole time.

Live Action TV

Miss Piggy is probably the most famous example of this. It still works, because part of the joke is that she isn't really that feminine.

Like, Janice as well, although Richard Hunt does a more convincing female voice than Frank Oz. Fer sure.

This one was averted in the first season, when Eren Ozker played Janice (with a completely different characterization). Pretty much everyone agrees that invoking this trope after her departure was an improvement.

In the 1970s Sesame Street, many female Muppets were voiced by males. One main example was Gladys the Cow, performed by Richard Hunt. Additionally, Hunt and Jerry Nelson and Frank Oz did many other incidental/one-time female characters, many of Oz's female characters sounding almost exactly like Miss Piggy.

Summer Heights High, hit Australian TV-show. Chris Lilley voices a girl in high school and is actually pretty good at it without making his pitch much higher, more of making it more bitchy like the average teenage girl in any country. Also voices the 'gangsta' idiot kid where he sends his voice lower and the Drama Teacher where he adds a slight lisp and says the hilarious dialogue pretty straight to comedic effect.

Peter Sellers was able to produce scarily realistic women's voices, notably "Breathy Kensington Thing", who made several cameo appearances on The Goon Show.

In one episode of The Friday Night Project, guest host David Tennant appeared in a Doctor Who sketch as the female companion. He doesn't look half bad, but the voice is just weird- it's like he sounds like a woman and doesn't sound like one at the same time.

The guys in The Whitest Kids U' Know often go with the "Monty Python" variety of female voices when they do drag roles; Darren is the only one who half sounds like a woman when he does it (though he has a high-pitched voice to begin with).

Although Timmy can be pretty convincing as well in the role of suburban moms and other such middle-aged females...

To see how the professionals do it, watch The Maury Povich Show when he has you guess whether that's a woman or a drag queen...

Used brilliantly by Colin Lane in an episode of Thank God You're Here. Colin, a male, was dressed up as a heavily pregnant woman. As soon as he was forced to say something, he effected the deepest voice he could, eventually culminating in this exchange (paraphrased due to a faulty memory).

Merrick Watts as an Obstetrician: Obviously you don't want to give birth as a male. Colin: You wanna start something, mate?

In Eureka, S.A.R.A.H., the AI who manages Sheriff Carter's "Smart House", has a female persona. However, Douglas Fargo, her creator and the town's resident Butt Monkey, based her voice on himself doing a female impression. (He claims he wanted to use Sarah Michelle Gellar, but she hadn't returned his calls). It's just obvious enough to squick Carter, and even though she has no physical presence, drops her squarely in the Uncanny Valley.

Note also that Fargo used code from B.R.A.D. as part of S.A.R.A.H.'s AI, so there's further gender issues

Averted and subverted in the Saturday Night Live "Gap Girls At The Mall" sketch. Chris Farley, David Spade, and Adam Sandler dress in drag impersonating teenage girls at the mall. In an intentional case, the three simply use high-pitched versions of their own voices. This becomes a Crowning Moment of Funny for Farley, in a skit where they're eating French fries, Spade's character says to Farley's character: "I thought you were trying to lose weight?" Farley breaks character by using his normal voice and saying, "Lay off me, I'm starving!" This has become Memetic Mutation for those familiar with Farley's career.

In an episode of Family Matters, Eddie, Steve, and Waldo go to a convent disguised as nuns to find Myra when they think she's joining up with them. Eddie and Steve put on ridiculous voices. Waldo, on the other hand, does not.

Eric Idle is probably the only member of the Monty Python group who doesn't speak in a shrill, high voice when imitating a woman.

Jack White (of the The White Stripes) sang the secondary lead vocal on Electric Six's "Danger! High Voltage" using a distinctly more feminine inflection. The video features a woman miming to his vocal part.

Philip Bailey of Earth, Wind & Fire was usually indistinguishable from the female backing singers that the band hired when singing in his trademark falsetto.

The song "Brighton Rock" by Queen was originally supposed to be a duet, with both a male and female vocalist. Unfortunately, the band had trouble finding an appropriate female vocalist, so Freddie Mercury ended up singing both parts himself.

A similar case with "Barcelona" by Freddie Mercury: although there was a female singer (Montserrat Caballe), Mercury recorded the song himself.

In Fleetwood Mac songs from 1975 onwards, it's sometimes hard to tell who is singing, as Stevie Nicks (female) and Lindsay Buckingham (male) have very similar voices.

Stefan Poiss of mind.in.a.box, despite his normally bass-baritone voice, does a decent female impersonation on "Unknown", possibly aided by the vocoder.

Luc Arbogast, medieval countertenor. Large, shaved head, tattooed like whoa, and has the voice of an operatic diva.

A lot of Van Der Graaf Generator songs have Peter Hammill doing this, including "Afterwards", "Refugees", "House With No Door", "Pioneers Over C", "Lemmings" and "A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers".

Radio

Ray Goulding, ironically enough the big, burly half of Bob & Ray, used the same matronly falsetto for numerous female characters. It was a lot more convincing when he was younger; in their earliest shows, he also had a breathy, right-over-the-top voice for their soap opera heroines: "Ooh, David, kiss me, my darling!"

The Reduced Shakespeare Company Radio Show has special appearances by several female celebrities, whose voices sound a little deep. This is because they're not actually female celebrities, but Reed Martin, Professional Impressionist!

Female Shakesperian characters are mostly played by Adam Long. This is authentic, people!

Also worth noting that, with the right software, one can sound like the opposite gender. Morph Vox and others are pretty convincing if you set them up right.

This is exactly how the female voices are done in Hyadain's video game music covers, according to Word of God.

To avert this in real life, you have to remember that doing a convincing female voice is NOT a matter of how high you can go. It's a matter of resonance—most male voices are far more resonant than female voices, so making your voice less resonant will get a much more convincing result (usually a low-voiced woman) compared to the standard comedic routine (someone on caffeine, helium, and/or crack).

In speech (as opposed to singing) verisimilitude is not in the pitch or the timbre, as there's a fairly large overlap in both between male and female voices. For about the upper two-thirds of the tenor range and about the lower two-thirds of the alto range, speech mannerisms, subtle and less so, dominate. Skillful manipulation of these can produce a convincing voice (male, female, or genderless) in almost anyone of any sex or gender. For that matter, a person's timbre is more flexible than most people give it credit for.

There are quite a few YouTube tutorials on this, mostly intended for transitioning transwomen. CandiFLA (slightly NSFWnote She's a bit of an exhibitionist.) might be the best-known.

Drag Queens are a mixed bag on this. Some manage to sound like typical women, some attempt to disguise their voices, some do nothing special since their natural male voices are that high, and others...it can be a little jarring to watch a queen elegantly lipsynch a Janet Jackson number, then turn on the microphone and say in a gravelly voice, "How the fuck is everyone?!" Although drag queens can't afford to be too convincing (at least onstage). Even women who do female drag (yes, it's done) work to make themselves unconvincing.

Back in the late 1980s, there was a kafuffle about a phone sex operator named Raven, who was a young black man impersonating a woman. The ads, needless to say, were false advertising.

In Matilda, Miss Trunchbull, traditionally played by a tall baritone-voiced man, often suffers from this, most notably when Bryce Ryness played her on the first US tour, although Bertie Carvel, the originator of the role, performed a very convincing female voice.

Video Games

Bonita Soleil from Psychonauts, though like Doctor Girlfriend below her voice actor doesn't even attempt to give her a feminine voice.

This is used as a joke when Raz first talks to her. He finds her in her dressing room, crying in a high female voice—but the sobbing is actually a recording to help her get into character. When Bonita finally speaks, her voice is far different and the crying continues until she turns it off.

Lady D from Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure. The game isn't voiced in the traditional sense, but when she talks, sound bites of deep, throaty coughs punctuated by VERY masculine "Yoo-Hoo"'s play.

Stronghold uses the Monty Python variation for the game's few female characters.

Dissidia: Final Fantasy has Jason Spisak voicing Bartz, a mimic-type character who copies the attacks of other characters and mimics their tone of voice when doing so. In the original game the only female on the hero roster was Terra, and Spizak didn't even attempt to imitate her. Then the prequel came out, and Tifa, Yuna and Lightning joined the group, and Bartz's lines were re-recorded to be better imitations of the person he was copying. Thus, Jason Spisak had to imitate four very different-sounding female characters. And he pulled it off. His impressions are so good in fact, some wondered for a time if it was a distorted version of the original voice and didn't think it was actually him.

Gruntilda and her sisters from the Banjo-Kazooie series. Grunty and Mingella have Python-esque women's voices (Speaking Simlish), while Blobelda's voice has almost no trace of femininity.

Fujisaki Chihiro from Dangan Ronpa is a frail boy who dresses as a girl to avoid the stigma of being a, well, frail boy that gets bullied because he is not the Japanese-standard of how they think a young man should look and act. His Japanese voice actor is 'Kouki Miyata, a guy who's been pigeonholed in "cute boy" roles.

In Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes, Kaz does some very poor quality impressions of female Metal Gear characters (Naomi, Meryl and The Boss). Apparently, though, they had to be re-recorded badly because the voice actor got the original delivery really close, which doesn't fit Kaz's character.

Persona 4 showcases this spectacularly during the cross-dressing pageant.

Web Original

Works with most Abridged Series, since they are not supposed to be taken seriously.

Subverted in Gantz Abridged, in which at first Kishimoto is voiced by hbi2k (who admits his lady voices suck, as seen in Berserk Abridged), with her voice being commented on by other characters. After she clears her throat, her voice changes with an actual woman (Cassius 614) voicing her from that point on.

One often-praised aspect of Naruto The Abridged Series is Masako's believable female voices, such as Ino, Haku(?), and Hinata. Meanwhile, Vegeta voices Sakura in the finest Miss Piggy tradition, and does a less exaggerated but no more convincing voice for Temari.

In Ranma 1/2 Abridged, Mythros voices both Boy and Girl Ranma. It is more of a low seductress rather than the typical over-the-top Miss-Piggy falsetto.

Both applied and subverted in Ranma Abridged, as Akane is voiced by ZomgRuler and assorted random females by EliteslayerX, but the two admitted to not being able to do female voices and put up a casting call for the remaining important characters. All other female characters are voiced by women.

Joey: Nyeh, Mai Valentine, you sound like a man! That is completely normal for this series, but still, what the hell?!

So far averted in Dragon Ball Z Abridged, where female voices are provided by actual females... except in the case of Princess Snake, voiced by LordQuadros, who does Metal Gear Solid The Abridged Series. Everything about her is a Shout-Out to LordQuadros' own project and its source material, the disconcertingly growly voice included.

K-On! doesn't have a single male character of note. K-On! The Abridged Series is performed by a group called "Just 5 Guys." Do the math. (Some attempt falsettos with varying success, but Abridged-Mio goes for the "are we sure she's not transgender?" approach.)

Pokémon The 'Bridged Series refers to this case as a medical condition called "Falsettosis". Misty suffers from this in the first episode, where she is voiced by xJerry64x, but averted in all other episodes where she is played by the female Nowacking.

Pitchingace88 does the voice works for both the male and female characters in his commentary of Criminal Case, although he doesn't actually make any attempts to make himself sound female when voicing a woman.

Wacarb, the creator of Ultra Fast Pony (a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic abridged series) voices all the characters in the show... leading to some very funny moments as the only female characters that sound remotely female are Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Cheerilee, and possibly Applejack. Likely the strangest of the lot are Rarity, with her deep voice and thick Aussie accent, and her sister, who sounds like a bear eating rocks.

Western Animation

For some reason, all 5 actors who have played Arthur's little sister, D.W., have been male.

Prepubescent, mind you.

The Venture Bros.: Dr. Girlfriend is voiced by Doc Hammer, using the lowest and most gravelly vocal register possible. This has led many to think that she is a transsexual (both in the fandom and the show), but the in-story justification is that she smokes a lot (Jefferson Twilight asked her if she smoked cigarettes or ate them).

Joe's half-sister is also voiced by a guy, but like with Dr. Girlfriend, he doesn't try to do a woman's voice, so normally, she sounds like a man. When she talks on the phone, she pinches her noise to make her voice sound higher.

In Superman: The Animated Series, Granny Goodness was played by Edward Asner. Who, it must be noted, was instructed not to try to hide his voice. Hearing an old granny with a man's voice can be rather nightmarish, which fits right into Granny's character. It may also be an extension of the panto tradition of evil dames like Cinderella's Stepmother and Stepsisters.

Another rather disturbing DCAU instance happens in Batman Beyond, when Talia, after being absent from Bruce's life for decades comes back in his life... only to reveal that it's actually her father, Ra's al-Ghul, who swapped bodies with her to cheat his own body's death, and who now wants that of Bruce as he prefers being a he. The last word in this phase and all subsequent ones uttered by the villain are in his male voice despite his current female body:

"I did not mean for you to find out this way. But I suppose what's done is done... detective!"

In Futurama, all of the member of the Waterfall family are voiced by Phil Hendrie, including Frida. It's less ridiculous than most examples, but still fairly Miss Piggy-esque.

South Park does this often, though slightly less so in recent seasons - especially when the female character in question is a real-world celebrity whom they're attempting to mock (such as Martha Stewart).

In a Family Guy episode in which the Griffins get superpowers Peter's power is shape-shifting; at one point he disguises himself as Britney Spears but he doesn't disguise his voice at all, and yet everyone falls for it.

On the short-lived FOX Family cartoon Monster Farm, Cowapatra (the Egyptian queen cow) is voiced by a man named Kevin Killebrew. Come to think of it, since there aren't that many female characters on the show (except for the ones that appear for one episode only), the only female character to have a female voice actress is Zombeef (voiced by Tifany Lenheart).

Brian Doyle-Murray played Agnes Delrooney, the escaped lady convict and Grandma-ma lookalike from Duckman. You won't soon forget Doyle-Murray's gravelly voice saying "You know what I haven't had in a long time? A man!". He also played Coach Gills, the female goldfish coach in My Gym Partner's a Monkey.

There's Alice in Superjail!, but the voice is certainly not feminine, in fact all that's feminine about her is her breasts and her name.

The lunch ladies are also clearly voiced by men, with deep raspy voices to go along with their gruff, sadistic personalities.

In the Total Drama series, DJ's mom is voiced by Clé Bennett, who also voices her son and Chef.

Willo The Wisp had Kenneth Williams as the voices of Mavis Cruet and Evil Edna. As well as everyone else.

Tina Rex in The Amazing World of Gumball is voiced by an adult male (originally the same guy who voices Richard) before being pitched way the hell down. The same goes for both of Ms. Simian's voice actors.

And when the Watterson kids accidentally eat their father's hormone supplements in "The Mustache", making them hulking and hairy, Gumball and Darwin keep the same voice actors but are pitched down while Anais's voice is replaced with what's obvious an adult man's voice.

Paul Frees once voiced a minor female character in Mr Peabodys Improbably History using the same voice he used in Some Like It Hot (see above). In addition, Walter Tetely, Sherman's voice actor, also voiced a little girl character (Napoleon's daughter) in one episode. This trope is due to there not usually being any female characters in the show, and thus, there was no need for female voice actors, except on the rare occasion the major historical figure was female (i.e. Cleopatra).

Grenda from Gravity Falls sounds like a professional wrestler, and is voiced by Carl Faruolo.

Guy Hamdon from SheZow speaks with a high pitched voice when he's SheZow.

Tina from Bob's Burgers is voiced by Dan Mintz, using his natural, deep voice. In this case, it works for the character, giving her an extra layer of awkwardness. Linda is also voiced by a man (John Roberts).

Imitating a Male Voice

Anime and Manga

Pulled off to varying degrees of success by Mayo Suzukaze in Rurouni Kenshin—the Battousai voice is a very convincing heroic tenor. The goofy, boyish voice Kenshin is meant to have the rest of the time drifts between believable and obviously female.

Same with Masako Nozawa as the Japanese voice of Goku in the Dragon Ball franchise. Nothing out-of-the-ordinary when he's a kid, but as an adult, especially a strong and powerful one, it takes some getting used to. Ditto for all of Goku's male relatives (sans Raditz), especially Bardock. In all non-Japanese dubs, this trope is averted and all these characters are voiced by men as adults and women as children.

All over the place in Simoun: there isn't a single male voice actor in the show. Justified in that everyone in the world of Simoun is born female, and any men are women who either chose to be so or allowed the Spring to randomly chose for them.

The Bakuras in Yu-Gi-Oh! are very obviously played by a woman, though, even with Yami Bakura, it fits due to his/their feminine looks. Its down right amusing in the last season, however, when the much more masculine Thief King Bakura sounds the same as Yami Bakura.

Disney's version of Mulan, about a young Chinese woman who secretly takes her father's place in the army, has her affecting a ridiculous deep baritone every time she speaks as a man, for comic effect. And it works. It helps that her cohorts aren't any too bright...

To add to the above, it was pretty clear she wasn't the most masculine of people - they might have assumed it was just her age and that her voice hadn't cracked yet.

Subverted in the Whoopi Goldberg movie The Associate, where she disguises herself as a white male investor to get ahead on Wall Street. At first, the Drag Queen coaching Whoopi tries to get her to deepen her voice ("If I go any deeper I'll be talking out my uterus!"), but eventually she just uses a slightly-raspier version of her natural voice and fools people all the same.

Live Action TV

In one of the "Gimmick of the Week" episodes of Charmed, Prudence turns into a guy. No, wait. She turns into Shannon Doherty in a bad wig and mustache. Her voice was just as unconvincing.

In an episode of Out of This World, the main character pretends she's a guy over the phone (can't remember why). It doesn't quite work. He friend notes that the guy had a "nasally voice".

Sabrina magically turns into a guy so people will take her more seriously in Sabrina the Teenage Witch. In other words, she gets a hair cut, baggy jeans, and a jersey. She sorta puts on a voice, but it's supposed to be funny because it's bad. It works, though. Though the guys she talks to think she's weird.

Happens in Fringe when Olivia is possessed by William Bell. Anna Torv does a pretty good job of it, too.

In Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Miriam Shor plays Yitzak, who is presenting a male gender identity throughout the movie (Yitzak's biological sex is left ambiguous in the finished version of the movie). His distinctly feminine voice is the only giveaway underneath the fake facial hair and men's clothing, which emphasizes that Yitzak is a feminine person who is forced to act masculine.

Traditionally, the role of adult Gary Coleman in Avenue Q is played by a woman with a deep voice.

Video Games

In their appearances in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Super Smash Bros., and Hyrule Warriors, Princess Zelda and Sheik always have the same voice actressnote Jun Mizusawa for Ocarina and Smash; Saori Seto for Warriors, resulting in Sheik having a muffled yet feminine voice. Depending on how one interprets Sheik's gender, this trope may be attributed either to the voice actress (if Sheik is a man) or to Zelda herself (if Sheik is a woman pretending to be a man, similar to the aforementioned Mulan example).

Web Original

Abridged series again. (eg: Malachite of Sailor Moon Abridged, played by the FTM transgender Whip0fAlchemy)

Done in the Clone High episode "A Shot in the D'Arc" when Joan of Arc poses as a boy in order to play on the basketball team. The disguise is basically a baseball cap, a fake mustache, and a terrible baritone. Somehow, her mask never seems to slip.

The late Dick Beals made a living voicing children in his career, as his voice was buffeted by his 4-foot, 7-inch body frame. He was Speedy Alka-Seltzer, and was the voice of not only Buzzer Bell on The Funny Company, but also Shrinkin' Violette (a girl) on the same show.

In The Powerpuff Girls episode "Bubble Boy", the girls capture Rowdyruff Boy Boomer and plant Bubbles disguised as him among the others. That the other Rowdyruffs could not suspect anything, given Bubbles' normally higher-pitched voice and baby-blue eyes, speaks volumes of their intelligence.

Similarly, Bubbles is the head of a poorly made male disguise in "I See a Funny Cartoon In Your Future", and again, the villain doesn't catch on to her disguised voice being abnormally high.

Real Life

It is not uncommon for female gamers to deepen their voices or use voice-masking tools when going online, so that they're not constantly hit on by creepy basement dwellers with no sense of boundaries.

Can go either way

Live Action TV

The drag queens of RuPaul's Drag Race can go either way depending on the queen. Some, like Jade Jolie and Willam, have naturally high voices that work great in drag, but become jarring in boy-mode (though Jade's Taylor Swift impersonation for the Once a Season "Snatch Game" challenge was considered spot-on). Others, like Rebecca Glasscock, Tyra Sanchez, and Raja, have very deep male voices that they don't disguise in drag, leading to scenes where you'd have a gorgeous female body in front of you...speaking in a baritone male voice.

Literature

About 97.5% of books recorded on audio have a) just one narrator and b) several characters of both genders. Even most of the very old and um, traditional books will have at least a few female characters. The upshot is a narrator having to voice characters of the other sex a great deal of the time. Success varies wildly.

Video Games

In Rock Band, a lot of the time the on-screen singer will make for something of an incongruous contrast with the original vocals. Female characters somewhat more often, since most of the available songs are sung by men, but it's just as bizarre to see a big hulking mountain of a man singing in the voice of Alanis Morisette. Or, even worse/better, GLaDOS.

Even better, the vocalist generally acts on stage as if their sex was based on that of their singing voice. So not only will he sing like a girl but also sway his hips.

This wasn't a problem in the earlier games, where your character didn't do the actual singing - there were two separate vocalists, one of either gender.

Of course, making your lead singer of ambiguous gender can account for songs sung by either gender. For example, Poison.

While Guitar Hero: Van Halen exclusively has male lead singers because all the songs are sung by males, the backing vocals (sung by the guitarist and bassist in the game) can be either gender depending on the song, and anyone can be assigned to them. Try assigning Lars Umlaut or even Eddie Van Halen to those roles when performing "Pretty Fly for a White Guy", or any female to the same role when performing "Master Exploder".

In Rock Band 2 you could be forgiven for thinking the developers made a mistake by assigning a female singer to "Visions" by Abnormality. While it is a very deep vocal part, it's actually a woman doing a death metal growl.

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